Fuse's End
by boshums
Summary: Naruto isn’t exactly what they all thought him to be, and, now that he has nothing left to stay for, he’s leaving.


Title: Fuse's End  
Author: boshi  
Pairing: unrequited NaruSasu  
Rating: PG for nothing more than swearing  
Disclaimer: Naruto is in no way, shape or form mine. If it were I'd be rolling around in a fluffy bed due to a surplus of money. Mmm, bed…  
Authors' Note: This is complete shit, I know, but feedback would still be nice. That is all.  
Summary: Naruto isn't exactly what they all thought him to be, and, now that he has nothing left to stay for, he's leaving.  
Archive: Like anyone would want this =P

**Fuse's End**

            It was snowing; was almost pelting down on the village earlier. Almost hail, but not quite. And he should know; he had been sitting in it the whole time. He should be blue, he tells himself; should be shaking and frozen, unable to blink or form coherent thought. He should be dead. He should be, but he isn't. He can feel the snow weighing down on him, feels the frigid texture of this melted water that perched, layer upon layer, upon his unsheltered form.

            The funny thing, to him, is that he is not the least bit cold.

            Everyone else is though; he saw them shivering and shuddering in the early hours of the storm as they all ran back to their warm homes. Layers of clothing were piled upon them, and they grasped each article closer to their selves they were so frigid; they huddled in schools of fish until they got to their destinations, figuring that if the clothes were not working, their combined body heat would. 

            He was not wearing more than one layer of frayed and worn clothing; the only clothing his overly considerate village would grant him. Did you know he actually hates orange? Despises it with a passion, he does. He can put up with it though, or could rather, just like he could put up with a lot of things, a lot of crap, from this village.

            He does it all for him, you know? Or, rather, did it all for him. Was not always that way though; no, once it had been for another person, the one who took care, the calmer; the provider. Taunts had grown over the years though, and his Provider was not enough to really keep him though. He did not have to put up with their shit, he thought, he was strong, and more intelligent then they gave him credit for. He did not have to deal with this; was not his fault they were to blind to see what a great resource they had amongst them.

            Though, of course, it always was. He was to blame for them not knowing of his strength, his will, his mind. He acted stupid, not wanting people to know he could think of strategies the same as they could; fearing if they knew they would try to hurt him. Then he would have to fight back. He did not want to fight back; he would win. All because of them too, he would win. They gave him the power, they made the merge possible, they left him alone to master the power, train; they even started to train him their selves. So, it was not completely his fault, though mostly it was. 

            They picked on him, teased, poked, and messed him up both physically and mentally. Did they know he had been using a jutsu for years to hide what they had made him into? No, of course not. He was their punching bag, they play thing to drag out of the closet when they were feeling down and then leave on the floor, discarded like any other material thing. Did they have any idea that he used another jutsu to hide his chakra? No. They thought he was so weak; thought he was useless. He turned out to be normal, they thought, no sense of worrying; he doesn't have enough chakra to do any damage.

            How fucking wrong they were. But he was not going to be the one to tell them this; at least not directly.

            Did they know he had been contacted? He had been. It was the one's brother; he called upon him one night, though not in the literal sense. He had been training alone deep within the forest and heard a voice within his head. Thought he had finally been pushed too far off the deep end he did, until he realized who it was, what he wanted; what it meant. He did not agree to go though, not yet anyway.

            He was tired now, so tired. Not from the cold, hypothermia was not something he could get with his condition, but from putting on play after play for the village people. First act, second act, no intermission allowed, oh no; third act, fourth, fifth… weren't plays supposed to only have five or so? Third was the climax, fifth was the end; he had listened well enough to know this. He never finished with his play; it was one endless stream of acts. 

            He did not have sparkling eyes, you know. They did not become alive with his every emotion, his every thought. The eyes were not the windows to the soul, and his soul was not endless sunshine, warm feelings, and grassy meadows. Shit, his eyes weren't even both blue, and that was the one thing about his mask that was flawed: you could see the red of one eye if you looked long and hard enough.

            What got him was that no one did. They saw him, the heard him, they looked briefly at him, and then dismissed him as an annoyance, an abomination, a nothing. He still got the harsh words, the condemning glares, the shoves of those passing on the street, but none of them noticed him, none of them realized that he had tried and tried, but he was giving up, his patience was shockingly thin; he was a fuse which the people had lit long ago, and it was only a matter of time now before the bomb went off.

            There had been other times, of course, when the fuse was getting close to ending, but it had always been stopped before things actually hit the proverbial fan. There was always some one person who ended a period of turmoil and made his days all sunny. They stamped out the fire, elongated the fuse again, made him content and semi-complacent even though his buoyant mask. Never lasted, of course; the jeers would become too loud after a time, the shoves and glares harder to ignore even with the special people. He was almost sorry, if that counted.

            The last special person, however, was what ended everything. He adored him, worshiped him, and did everything within his power while still keeping his cover to help his only loved one. Loved one? you ask; of course, he loved all his special people, though never in the way he loved this one. 

Wanted to stay with this one forever he did, wanted to give up everything to make him happy. Told him that too: what a mistake _that_ was. His special one ripped him apart right down the seam. Did not even say a word, just stared with piercing black eyes, fathomless, seemingly soulless onyx eyes. Wall crumbled, false blue eyes went dead and flat as they actually were; scared the living crap out of his special one, he bets. But the special one disapproves, said so with his stare. He cannot take it anymore. That was the last straw.

Coming to a place in his thoughts he though it appropriate to end at, Naruto removed himself from the alleyway, shaking the many inches of snow from his person as the rest evaporated suddenly. He had places to be, he thought calmly; he was being called even now. Dislodging the remaining snow from his hair, Naruto placed his hands in his weathered pockets and lazily meandered his way out of the village, slightly smirking while blood red and cloudy blue eyes appreciated the way the snow continued to fall in slow circles from the heavens. Sasuke had scoffed in his face when Naruto admitted the ebony haired boy was in one special person left, so now Naruto had other things to see and people to do. After all, he had been contacted, hadn't he? He had nothing stopping him now, nothing at all. Itachi was calling him, calling him to hurry and meet the appointment he had made; stop dallying, it said, I do not have eternity to wait. 

Gaara was calling to him now too, and wasn't that just strange? Another grin split his face, this one real though. No more plastic expressions, no more hiding who he was, what he was; no more buttering up reality for the sheltered village people because they were both calling to him now, and it would be terribly rude to make them wait.


End file.
